


On a Time

by llassah



Category: Original fiction; written fairytale
Genre: Community: picfor1000, F/M, Sentient Forest, disturbing imagery, retold fairytale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 07:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llassah/pseuds/llassah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a castle in the forest, with towers that cannot see above the trees, arrow slits that shoot into the leaves and a moat that is all briar and bindweed that, if you are brave and bite your tongue, you can walk over to the other side, to where root fights stone and branch cracks wall. In this castle in the forest with the trees in it live two maidens who are probably princesses, but they never spin or embroider or sing courtly songs and their feet are bare and dirty, and they run from room to room and howl at the moon whenever they please. They are beautiful, with dark eyes and skin that has been touched by the sun, black hair and long limbs, strong from running.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On a Time

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for picfor1000, with [this picture](http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=2191233226) as the prompt.

There is a castle in the forest, with towers that cannot see above the trees, arrow slits that shoot into the leaves and a moat that is all briar and bindweed that, if you are brave and bite your tongue, you can walk over to the other side, to where root fights stone and branch cracks wall. In this castle in the forest with the trees in it live two maidens who are probably princesses, but they never spin or embroider or sing courtly songs and their feet are bare and dirty, and they run from room to room and howl at the moon whenever they please. They are beautiful, with dark eyes and skin that has been touched by the sun, black hair and long limbs, strong from running.

Perhaps they aren’t princesses at all, for all that they are beautiful, for all that they live in a castle. Perhaps they wandered too far into the forest as children; perhaps they have a mother to weep over their absence. No princess has a mother, not if she is to sew a nettle shirt or make a woman wear burning shoes and dance or wait in pain and hunger but with unshakeable faith or throw a frog at a wall, for what girl with a mother could do that?

The castle provides all they need. They have food, a garrison full of weapons and a bed they sleep in intertwined, mute and dreaming, for the castle cannot teach them speech though the birds in the trees teach them to whistle and sing and the leaves to dance.

Any princes who enter the forest are eaten by wolves. It cannot be helped. This, after all, is a place of wild beasts and roots that rip, gouge and tear. It is no place for princes. Those who make it to the castle walls are felled with arrows through their hearts. There is a castle in the forest that a king built. There is a forest in the castle.

There is a prince under a spell, a wicked enchantment that gives him the shape of a fearsome beast, all teeth and talons, free of every need, every hunger and thirst, every fatigue and desire save for that of companionship. He has a loneliness that gnaws at his heart like a dog with a bone as he runs through towns and cities, over rivers and mountains into caves that gape with drips that echo in the velvet darkness. He has no company. He is too frightening for the affection of others.

One day he lopes into the forest and it lets him. The branches part and the wolves stay silent. They follow, flanking him on either side, but do not hunt. Their tongues hang out of their mouths with something like laughter as they stare, arrogant as foxes. They could, between them, hamstring him and rip his throat out but something deters them. The bows stay unstrung, too, and the trees in and through the castle allow him to climb the east tower, through the highest window on an oak branch.

His claws clack on the cold stone floor. His panting breaths rasp in the dusty air. He would whistle to keep his spirits up if his mouth could form the shape.

He is lonely and afraid, and scratches through the castle with the knowledge that he is an intruder. Not a prince, but a monster. Room after room he visits, rooms full of dresses as blue as the sky, black as night, red as blood, dresses made of cobwebs and the finest starlight. Rooms full of shoes made of silk so delicate that even to stand in them would be to ruin them. Rooms of spinets and trumpets, of hoops, balls and spinning wheels. Rooms full of books stacked as high as a Cathedral. Rooms full of mirrors, of dead-eyed mechanical dolls and clockwork songbirds of fine gold filigree until he finds them, the girls who could be princesses sleeping curled around each other, their lips red as blood and their hair as black as the crow’s wing. They shift as they dream, fingers gripping then releasing the furs on which they lie. With a sudden desperation he wants to be one of the pelts underneath them.

He is no prince, so he waits patiently for them to awake, sitting with his back to them a respectful distance away. He sheathes his claws and looks at the wall, oddly contented.

Still, they sleep. He waits on the stone cold floor as briars grow about his legs, slowly trapping him. Patiently he bears it. He needs neither food nor rest, and even the sounds of their sleeping breaths are more companionship than he has had in many summers.

Maybe it is a hundred years. When they awake there are red roses on the briars surrounding him and his eyes are closed, though he smiles showing all his sharp sharp teeth. They hack the branches away with axes they took from dead woodcutters and sharp swords from the skeletons of fallen princes then they bathe his scratches with tears and lick his fur clean of blood. Then, they lead him to the bed of furs and with their kisses the spell breaks. He is lonely no more.

They live happily, of course. Gradually, the forest destroys the castle and they live half in stone and half in nests and branches. There are no balls, no music save that of their rough voices, the birds perched in the trees and their mimicking whistles. There are no waltzes but they dance nonetheless. There are no fairy godmothers, but the wolves take care of the occasional heroic prince and the princesses with their crossbows do the rest. The fine clothes, furs and damask dresses, mantles and cloaks, they sleep on, wrapped around each other. On certain days, their prince becomes a man once more, but more often he keeps his beastly form. It is far warmer that way.


End file.
